Last December, I finally got the pixie cut I had been dreaming of for years. (Click the link for the dramatic before and after photo!) I was so excited to make a big change, and I was also looking forward to the challenge of growing my pixie out as gracefully as possible.

It took a lot of work— when my hair was super-short, I had to trim it every two weeks! But I thought I’d share the stages with you lovelies to give you some ideas of how to rock your hair as it goes from super-short to an average bob (which is what I’ve got going on now.) Care to see?

The Pixie– just a refresher of how my hair looked after it was first cut…

Add body- pixies are all about structure, which is why they often look bad when they’re growing out (they get floppy). You can work with this, though, buy adding curl and body to your hair with a tiny flat iron or curling iron. And don’t forget to rock cute hair accessories!

Needs a cut- I knew I needed a trim when my hair would start to get this mullet-y quality. It was still short in the front because of my original pixie fringe, but the back was losing shape fast.

Quick fix- If I didn’t have time for a trim, I’d wear a front braid to pull the bangs back and tiny pigtails to keep the rest contained.

Neck trim- Otherwise, I used a razor along my neck line to keep the back nice and short while the front layers were growing out. You can see in the photo below that my front layers were allllmost in line with the back. When the front and back are even, you can let all of your hair get longer and it’ll naturally turn into a bob without much fuss.

Half Up- While I was waiting for everything to even out, I often pinned the short layers back, giving the illusion of a half-up style (even though I didn’t actually have enough hair to pull it into a ponytail in the back).

My Little Pony- Finally, as the entire look grew, I was able to pull my hair into a mini ponytail (with the help of a few bobby pins, of course!)

A Bob with Body- This photo was taken a month ago, when we were in Italy. By this point, I had a bona-fide bob and could play with a curling iron to give it bounce and curl.

Now that I have a short bob, I can let my hair grow without having to cut it much. I’ll clean up the layers every couple months, but I’m finally done with the bi-weekly trim that I had to deal with at first.

Overall, when trying to grow out a pixie, invest in some cute hair accessories and don’t be afraid to trim your neckline on your own with a razor (the kind for cutting hair, not the kind you shave your legs with).

Have you gone through the process of growing out a pixie? Any tips or tricks that I didn’t mention? Got photos? Email ’em to kim@blendingbeautiful.com or share your thoughts in the comments!

Thank you so very much for this blog post. After having my head shaved, a little over a year ago to remove a brain tumor, growing out my hair has not been so graceful! Thank you for the tips and ideas!

Your bob looks so cute! I’m not great with maintaining my hair. Whenever I try to grow it out I get too frustrated at the inbetween stage and I cut it all off again, back to square one. Looking at how nicely your pixie cut grew out gives me a little more faith and motivation :)

@Iris: it can be sooo frustrating!! I’d play with pinning your hair up in back… Create little twists and bobby pin them into place, them maybe add a flower clip? Or you could do what I did and trim the back shorter to let the top layers grow a bit more and make everything more even. Good luck!

Ariane writes:

Hey Kim, I’m now in bi-weekly trim phase…my hair is super thick and fast growing. Any tipps on trimming your pixie yourself? Or should I even trim myself? Since I’m just too lazy to go back and forth to the hairstylist… Lol
You made it look so nice and easy to grow out your pixie…love! Thanks for the inspiration… ;)

This is great! I’m currently growing out my hair from after chemo. I was still bald in the beginning of April, but now I have about 3in of hair. The hard part is that after chemo hair tends to come in super curly. My hair was stick straight before, so it’s making these pixie styles more messy than ladylike. But I’m trying to make it work!

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Thanks for stopping by! I'm a mama to Hazel and Theo, wife to Travis and birth doula living in Santa Cruz, California.